Mattel

BEIJING : Manufacturers in China and American toy giant Mattel are both responsible for recent recalls of millions of lead-tainted toys worldwide, a Chinese official said. Li Zhuoming, executive vice-chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Toy Industry Association, said blame "cannot be pushed to either side" in this summer's recalls, which included popular Sesame Street, Barbie and Polly Pocket products made in the province. "The producers are responsible because they do not have...

NEW YORK: Mattel and Google are trying to bring the 75-year-old View-Master into the 21st century, updating the iconic stereoscopic photo viewer with smartphone compatibility and virtual reality technology. It's a long way from Google Glass, both in price ($30 vs. $1,500) and aim. Targeted at families, the updated View-Master has users insert a smartphone into a headset. Using a smartphone app, the gadget hopes to immerse kids in a slew of virtual worlds, from far-off...

NEW YORK: Mattel, the world's largest toymaker, said profit dropped and sales rose less than analysts estimated after the recall of 21 million Chinese-made products in the past two months. Net income fell 0.9% to $236.8 million, or 61 cents a share, from $239 million, or 62 cents, a year earlier, the company said Monday in a statement. Revenue increased 2.7% to $1.84 billion, missing analysts' estimates of $1.91 billion. Mattel incurred costs of about $40 million from recalled products...

HONG KONG: US toy maker Mattel's recent recalls have swung a spotlight on Francis Choi, the Hong Kong tycoon whose factories made hundreds of thousands of recalled lead-tainted toy cars. Widely known locally as Hong Kong's 'Toy King', the 61-year-old billionaire has been one of the city's most successful manufacturers. Born in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Choi started out as a toy salesman. He founded toy maker Early Light Industrial Company at age 25. Choi...

MUMBAI: Dhoom 3 will mark possibly the most-ambitious licensing merchandise programme yet mounted on an Indian film as Yash Raj Films plans to bet big on the licensing market with the third instalment of the popular Dhoom series. Yash Raj Films (YRF) has signed licensing deals with a number of companies including Mattel Toys and PepsiCo for Dhoom 3 and more than 100 items ranging from games and toys to gadgets and apparel are set to hit the markets in...

MUMBAI The world's biggest toy maker Mattel Inc wants to increase its India market share by producing a range of toys that can compete with cheap Chinese imports, besides venturing into Bollywood merchandising with the upcoming Dhoom 3 starring Aamir Khan . The cheaper toys will be rolled out in India before their launch in other emerging markets, said Peter Broegger, senior vice president, Asia Pacific,...

NEW YORK: Mattel announced its third recall in five weeks after finding about 848,000 Chinese-made Barbie and Fisher-Price products with paint that may contain excessive levels of lead. The 11 affected toys include Barbie kitchen and furniture items, Fisher-Price train toys and Bongo Band drums, bringing the number of Chinese-made Mattel products recalled since August to 21 million. Mattel, which sources 65% of its toys from China, said Tuesday that no illnesses have been reported. ...

RIVERSIDE (CALIFORNIA): A federal jury awarded Mattel Inc. $100 million in damages on Tuesday in a copyright lawsuit that pitted the house of Barbie against MGA Entertainment Inc., the maker of the saucy Bratz dolls. MGA Entertainment Inc. and its chief executive officer Isaac Larian were told to pay a total of $90 million in three causes of action related to Mattel's employment contract with designer Carter Bryant, who developed the Bratz concept. The jury also...

NEW DELHI: Mattel has chosen Wipro to outsource its IT infrastructure management work and the deal size is likely to be around $20 million, reported ET Now on Wednesday. ( Watch ) Wipro is yet to get back on the exact size of the deal but experts say that it is likely to be in the range of $20 million or even lesser than that but they say that there is huge potential given Mattel's size, the report said. It is the world's largest...

NEW YORK: With US major Mattel ordering three separate recall of millions of Chinese made toys found to contain unsafe levels of lead paint, Walt Disney would begin its own testing of toys featuring Disney characters, including random testing of products already on store shelves. Also, Toys R Us, the nation's largest toy retailer, has notified manufacturers that it, too, no longer feels that their tests are enough and will hold independent lab testing....

if you have a little trouble finding a harry potter action figure this winter, robert a. eckert is the man to blame. mattel inc had already acquired the licence to produce the toys when eckert, 47, came on as chairman and chief executive in may 2000. the former head of kraft foods inc quickly put his own understated touch on the rollout. eckert wanted to keep the product line simple, so mattel eliminated 25 per cent of the toys that were originally planned. eckert also aimed low, budgeting to sell just a quarter of the...

NEW DELHI: Angry Birds, one of the most popular mobile games , will soon come out of the digital into the real world when board games and t-shirts based on Angry Birds are launched in the Indian market. World's largest toymaker Mattel will launch Angry Bird board games, while Dream Theatre, which owns merchandise rights for Superman and Batman as well, will introduce T-shirts, plush toys and accessories sporting Angry Birds logo and characters. "We are working...

NEW YORK: US stocks were little changed on Wednesday as a strong reading on the labor market failed to extend gains a day after the Dow and S&P reached their highest close in about 2-1/2 years. U.S. private employers added 187,000 jobs in January, topping forecasts, according to a private report. "The ADP report was very positive, but given the big day we had yesterday it isn't surprising that people would be taking some...

NEW YORK: US stocks seesawed between modest gains and losses on Wednesday as indexes struggled to move higher a day after the Dow and S&P 500 closed at their highest in about 2-1/2 years. Investors were reluctant to make big bets on stocks even though data showed U.S. private employers added more jobs than expected in January. "We are pushing into the technical resistance. They (indexes) have moved awfully far on the short-term, intermediate...

NEW DELHI: Mattel has chosen Wipro to outsource its IT infrastructure management work and the deal size is likely to be around $20 million, reported ET Now on Wednesday. ( Watch ) Wipro is yet to get back on the exact size of the deal but experts say that it is likely to be in the range of $20 million or even lesser than that but they say that there is huge potential given Mattel's size, the report said. It is the world's largest toymaker by...

WASHINGTON: US toymaker Mattel Inc has been fined $2.3 million by the United States' Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for importing lead-tainted toys from China. Mattel and its subsidiary Fisher-Price were fined on Friday for violating a ban on bringing dangerous products into the US, the commission said. The violation dates back to 2007, which the company had to recall about two million toys of 95 different types made in China, including plastic toy cars...

They talk the talk. In English. India is one of the largest English-speaking countries in the world. And judging by the popularity of crosswords and word-game books, quite a few of these English speakers like language games. (We should know: Any day, for whatever reason, ET drops its crossword puzzle, we spend most of the morning fending off outraged calls). So India should be a major market for Scrabble, the internationally popular word game played with letter tiles on a board, right?

BEIJING: Nearly half of China's toy makers closed last year due to shrinking exports brought about by the global financial crisis, Chinese media reported on Monday. At the start of 2008, China had 8,610 companies that produced and exported toys, but by the end of the year, that number had declined by 49 percent to 4,388, the Beijing Times said, citing customs data. Chinese toy exports grew marginally in 2008 by 1.8 percent to 8.6 billion dollars, but the overall figure...

NEW YORK: The US toy manufacturer Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price toys, announced on Thursday it would cut a thousand jobs worldwide due to higher production costs and the economic crisis. Mattel, the world's largest toy maker, said the cuts amounted to 3.0 percent of its workforce and would include layoffs, eliminating open positions and retirements. The California-based company has suffered from the inflation of the price of raw materials amid the...